Discover how PM-Partners partnered with Westpac to deliver an award-winning Lean training program, empowering thousands of employees to streamline processes, improve customer satisfaction, and achieve real, measurable results. 

Highlights 

• Delivered Lean training to over 5,000 Westpac employees nationwide (the first in-person training post-COVID). 
• Achieved the highest-ever course Net Promoter Score (NPS) for any Westpac training program: 85+. 
• Initial results highlighted the implementation of more than 130 process improvement projects, with each one saving approximately 3 hours per project. 
• Program recognised with 3 Platinum LearnX Awards in 2024. 

Customer background 

Westpac is one of Australia’s Big4 banks, serving millions of customers across Australia, New Zealand, and the Asia-Pacific region. Its core ambition is ‘to be our customer’s #1 bank and partner through life’. 

The challenge 

As part of the bank’s intent to deliver exceptional customer experiences, Westpac had committed to a service promise mindset of ‘Care. Listen. Act.’ This was underpinned by a ‘one best way’ approach to reducing service inefficiencies and customer complaints, such as long wait times, IT issues, and misaligned processes. To help bring this vision to life, the bank sought to: 

• Encourage and support the simplification of processes to enhance service delivery and satisfaction 
• Utilise Lean principles and equip employees with practical Lean tools to drive a customer-centric mindset and culture of continuous improvement 
• Deliver a targeted Lean training program with real impact, ensuring participants could apply their learning and ideas to effect measurable change. 

Westpac recognised the need for an external partner with expertise in Lean methodologies and capability uplift. Having worked with PM-Partners for many years, the bank turned to our team to co-design and deliver a robust Lean training and certification program. 

How PM-Partners helped 

PM-Partners collaborated closely with Westpac’s internal experts to develop a bespoke Lean training program accredited by Cardiff University’s Lean Competency System (LCS). Content was iteratively refined based on pilot feedback and aligned with Cardiff University’s LCS standards, ensuring participants received an externally recognised certification.  

This two-part program aimed to build Lean capability across the bank’s Customer & Corporate Services (CCS) division and other key areas, such as HR and Legal:  

• White Belt (LCS Level 1A): A two-hour crash course in Lean fundamentals, introducing four key tools. Delivered face-to-face to 4,400 employees across 85 sessions nationwide, including Big Room Training for groups of up to 230 participants.
  

  “38 years as a banker and I found this session very interesting. It prompted open thought processes and to not just accept the way we do things now.” – White Belt Participant

• Yellow Belt (LCS Level 1B): A full-day, immersive, face-to-face workshop followed by practical application. This phase trained 900 employees and introduced 12 additional Lean tools. Participants conducted process improvement projects, which involved applying four tools to a real-life business problem within their area, and documenting results in a workbook. They also attended coaching sessions to validate their learning.
  

  “Thank you so much for an insightful and informative training session – this is by far the best training session I’ve embarked on.” – Yellow Belt Participant

Outcomes delivered 

The program delivered transformative results for Westpac, including:  

• Unprecedented Net Promoter Score (NPS): Achieved the highest-ever NPS of 85+ for any training program in Westpac’s history, far surpassing the benchmark of 30 for excellence. 
• Award-winning recognition: Based on this result, Westpac entered the program into the LearnX Awards 2024, winning three Platinum LearnX Awards in categories including Best Certification Training and Best Learning Campaign.  
• Tangible benefits: Initial results from the Yellow Belt training showed 52% of certified candidates have implemented their projects, totalling more than 130 process improvements, with approximately 3 hours saved per initiative.
• Improved customer outcomes: These implementations have resulted in a 17% reduction of service complaints and improved customer and employee satisfaction. Anecdotal evidence from employees in the form of individual success stories also illustrates how they are applying Lean tools to optimise processes, save time and money and improve service.